California's last Mexican governor signed what he said was a mortgage, the courts called it a sale, and he lost his last ranch at 90

Pío Pico was the last governor of Mexican Alta California and held ranchos across Southern California. In 1862, while covering his brother Andrés's debts, he signed a deed of sale he did not understand for Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores; the Marine Corps bought that land in 1942 for Camp Pendleton. He lost Rancho Los Coyotes to Abel Stearns over unpaid loan interest. In 1869 he sold half his San Fernando land to build the Pico House hotel in Los Angeles. His home was El Ranchito, a 20-room adobe on Rancho Paso de Bartolo. In 1883 he took money from Bernard Cohn. Pico could not read English. He said he borrowed $62,000 on a mortgage and repaid $65,000; Cohn said it was a sale. The interpreter, Francisco Johnson, first agreed it was a loan and then testified it was a sale; Pico's lawyers said Cohn had paid him $2,000. A first trial found Pico could recover the land on paying $35,000 more, which he refused. Cohn died in 1889, and his successors won a second trial. In February 1891 the California Supreme Court ruled against Pico, holding that a judgment is not overturned only because it rests on perjured testimony. Pico, nearly 90, was evicted. He died in September 1894 and was buried in an iron tomb at Calvary Cemetery. His remains were moved in 1921 to the Temple family mausoleum. The state bought El Ranchito in 1917 and made it a historic park in 1927.